Yummy paleo treats

I came home from a wonderful family party tonight w a full belly. My aunt made delicious meat balls and sausage in a red sauce. While everyone else enjoyed meatball and sausage sandwiches I enjoyed eating plain ol' meat balls and sausages. Plus a wonderfully large salad w balsamic vinegar. And the were just amazing! The best part of all? I complimented the meal so much that she sent me home with some leftovers for lunch!

She gave me the recipe and trust me I will be making this sooner than later. 

So after that amazing dinner, everyone gathered around the counter. For what you say?

                                         A sundae bar, of course!

So I stared at it and for a second and went on with my life as my family stuffed their faces with that deliciousness. 

I came home with quite a sweet tooth. I went to raid the kitchen and I found something good!!

Raw cacao I found at Mother's Market

                                    Raw Almond butter 

                                   (also a Mother's treat)

I took the raw almond butter

and spread it all over the small

piece of cacao 

                     I took some unsweetened coconut flakes and just did what came natural to me....

 And then I was happy. It was delectable. Just what I needed after a nice meal.

Good days keep on comin

My kombucha is done!! It's all in the fridge and ready for me to drink. For being my first batch I think it came out amazing.

My favorite by far is the plain strawberry. It's sweet and delicious and bubbly. Tomorrow im gonna show a really good whole roasted chicken recipe so stay tuned for that!

My accomplishment and the temptation

So today was a great day! Today is exactly 30 days that I have been Paleo. No mistakes. No cheats. And I must say I'm incredibly proud of myself. I have some great numbers to post up without any shame because I am still going to lose more weight and gain more muscle. 

Starting weight: 136

Waist: 33.5

Hips: 37.5

Arms: 12.5

Legs: 21.5

30 day weight: 127

Waist: 30.5 (-3 inches)

Hips: 35.5 (-2 inches)

Arms: 11.5 (-1 inch)

Legs: 21 (-.5 inch)

I'm extremely happy with what I've accomplished in 30 short days. It took me a year to put on about 15 pounds and in 30 days I'm already down 9. I'm not at the end of my journey, just at the beginning. Tomorrow I'm going to start working out. I haven't worked out at all in the past 30 days and now I'm ready to kick it into high gear. 

So now that I got the good stuff out... Today I went to a family party. My cousin just had a baby and we had a get together to meet the little guy. 

I was starving when I got there and was happy to hear they would have carne asada, chicken, salad, and fruit. I was not so excited to see the many dips, breads, macaroni salad, etc they had. This was by far the hardest day I've had. The temptation was right there in front of me. My family was there saying " oh try this!!" "why arent you eating any? try it" So the entree part was a hard time but I got through it. This is what my plate looked like.

Now this was delicious. Everything was really good. Did I want a side of macaroni salad? YES. Did I want a couple of tortillas to put my meats in? YES. Did I want a soda to wash it all down? YES!!! You know what else I want? To look good in a bikini and play volleyball on the beach. So I stuck to the meal above. 

Then came dessert. As if the main course wasn't hard enough, everyone started to head upstairs for cobbler, ice cream, pandulce, and milk. All things I have no business eating. I walked in for just a minute to watch everyone enjoy themselves and catch a pic.

I said no to the temptation. Why work 30 days as hard as I did, lose a great amount of weight, and then "reward" myself with crap. It's just not worth it to me yet. On that note, I will have cheat days one day. Further in the future when I feel like I'm a lot closer if not at my goal. It will have to wait until then because ITS JUST NOT WORTH IT! 1 minute of yumminess in my mouth will equal probably a week of regret. 

I did feel the need for something so I stopped at fresh and easy,  grabbed a cup of coffee bean coffee, added a good amount of unsweetened almond milk, and some cinnamon. It was just what I needed to get rid of my little sweet tooth. Delicious! 

Bottle service

Alright! Today is the DAY!!! I just tasted my kombucha that has been brewing for 7 days in its little happy spot! AKA under my computer desk. I closed the vent for the air conditioner and put a blanket to partially cover the tea.

I tasted this today and it was so good. It wasn't too sweet not too sour. Just PERFECT. I've been reading that it depends on preference on how sweet or sour you like it and I feel that it is just PERFECT!!!! I'm SO excited. I was even more excited for what was about to come...the bottling!!

So first the not so fun part. I took all of my saved up kombucha bottles and started to take the labels off. This was a pain in the ass. Like a real pain. I got this stuff called goo off that worked really well. I sprayed, soaked, and peeled. Then sprayed again, soaked, and peeled. It took a couple of times and a couple of wrinkly fingers and a couple of hours but I finally finished!!

Once I was done gettin' all the junk off the bottles I put them in the dishwasher to disinfect and sanitize. They finished up and I was so excited to start bottling. First thing was first - I decorated my bottles. Just with cute little stickers because I felt like IT! 

After I cut up some fruits - strawberries, raspberries, apples, and peaches. I also juiced some ginger to make some yummy gingerale komchucha. The bottles looked like this right before I added the kombucha.

                        Pretty bottles with pretty fruit ready to be bottled!

Right before I started the bottling I took out the scoby. Check out how big my new scoby is! That little guy I'm pulling off is my starter scoby and that huge one underneath is my new guy! He is awesome and I love him!

              I started the bottling process. This was pretty messy but fun as well .

Last thing I did was took my bottles to my kombucha place. I'm going to let them ferment for another three days and burp them everyday to avoid any explosion. I'll update when they are ready with which are my favorites and least favorites! Until next time...